Ginger Baker's drum army

August 19^th – You really need to compare the two, 1968 to 2005, to appreciate not only how certain things change but also why. On this day in 1939, Ginger Baker was born. Now we all recognise that name, or at least those who like me are either kids of the 50’s (and so teenagers of the 60’s) or just plain music freaks…like me on both counts. What is harder to extract is just what he brought to the land of rock drumming, particularly when you view the 2005 footage of Cream – Live at the Albert Hall. With what’s nowadays seen as commonplace, Mr. Baker’s pedestrian drumming in 2005 hardly stands out; it was not always thus.

Mr. Baker likened himself to a jazz drummer, has dabbled extensively in the African drumming traditions and rhythms and has performed with some left-field bands and musos, but it really is in the field of rock drumming that he stands tall. Just about every rock drummer (certainly of note) since Cream’s inception and recordings has copied, adapted, updated or utilised Ginger Baker’s trademark rhythms and styles, drumming patterns and layouts; he really was a trailblazer that had an effect on even such a lowly one as me when I adopted the twin bass drum layout for the duration of my playing career; it was only in the noughties that I adopted the single bass drum/twin pedal layout. But that’s all by-the-by. What I really wanted to look at was if I seem so dismissive of his drumming now, what else was in the package to make Ginger Baker such a standout act.

Cream was a powerhouse trio of the ‘60’s’ who became the blueprint of hundreds of other bands of the time (Taste, Beck, Bogart and Appice, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and their ilk) and the band’s influence still has echoes today with Them Crooked Vultures and Muse. What Cream offered, when they were first formed in ‘66’, was a completely stripped-down version of the group. In performance it was their flaunting of the virtuosity of the musician, a releasing of all the stuff and nonsense that went into making the modern, well-formed pop group, and in their musical choice it was the redefining of the blues standards like Spoonful and Crossroads, all three members dressed in costume that was a return to the days of frills and furbelows, of Beau Brummell and the dandy. All this high-camp was quickly picked up by other bands and immediately miss-read as it led on to the high-pomp and glam-rock of Queen and Gary Glitter. But first and foremost it was the ability of the musicians that attracted the wannabe’s like me. Walls of 4x12 speakers, amps with slave-amps with slave-amps, drum kits that consisted of arrays of toms and cymbals that dwarfed the drummer (and any tall building in the district) were all used to create a wall of sound that could loosen fillings and render large reptiles comatose; that was the power-trio and Cream floated on the top (did you see what I did there…?) However, disregarding Messer’s Clapton and Bruce’s obvious addition to the overall sound (guitarists…if you see a drowning bass player you throw him his amp and the similarity between premature ejaculation and a lead guitar solo is that you know both are coming and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it) it was Ginger Baker who was the driving force to the band; a listen to Crossroads off’f the Wheels of Fire double album will quickly convince you. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_aw0Mu0Wus

…well if it doesn’t you have no soul…are deaf…have nothing further to offer the world of music…will probably be refused entry to gates of heaven…no hope, no sense, no feeling, no shit…

The other thing that created the vibe from out of which the legend that is Ginger Baker grew was the times. Much in the way of drumming back then was simple, 4/4 timing and very much in the background, a sort of upgrade from a more melodious metronome. What Mr. Baker did was lift the drummer onto a level platform with the rest of the band to become an integral part of the sound and the performance. His easy flamboyance and intricate fills were, at the time, groundbreaking as the trio’s music become the background to the visions we were treated to on a regular basis; visions of Vietnam, of Chappaquiddick, of Sharpeville, of the environmental devastation predicted by Rachel Carson, of the trio of assassinations (Malcolm X – Martin Luther King – JFK). It was to this footage that Ginger Baker’s controlled devastation of the rhythm section was played out. From thereon others took up the baton and ran with it, carved out their own place in what was once lead-singer territory; Messer’s Moon, Bonham and Mitchell, they couldn’t have done it without him…and in my own very small, tiny, miniscule, humble way, neither could I.